Fundamentals of Earthquake Prediction: Four Paradigms

About a million earthquakes of magnitude 2 or more are registered each year worldwide. About a hundred of them cause serious damage and once or twice in a decade, a catastrophic earthquake occurs. The vulnerability of our world to earthquakes is rapidly growing due to well-known global trends: proliferation of high-risk construction, such as nuclear power plants, high dams, radioactive waste disposals, lifelines, etc.; deterioration of the ground and destabilization of engineering infrastructures in megacities; destabilization of the environment; population growth; and other factors, including the escalating socioeconomic volatility of the global village. Today a single earthquake with subsequent ripple effects may take up to a million of lives; cause material damage up to $1012; destroy a megacity; trigger a global economic depression (e.g. if it occurs in Tokyo); trigger ecological catastrophe rendering a large territory inhabitable; and destabilize the military balance in a region (e.g., the Middle East). Regions of low seismicity became highly vulnerable; among them are the European and Indian platforms and central and eastern United States. These regions harbor scores of vulnerable megacities such as New York, Moscow and Rome.